Form: Novelette
Year: 1984
Publication history:
- ???? : The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection (tpb) , St Martins ( "The Affair")
- 1984 : Playboy June 1984 (m) , ( "The Affair")
- 1989 : Pavane au fil du temps (pb) , J'ai lu (France), 352 pp., ISBN 2-277-22631-9, 2631 (in French "Idylle" tr. Pierre K. Rey)
- 1992 : Secret Sharers (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1) (tpb) , Bantam, 546 pp., ISBN 0-553-37068-5
- 1992 : Secret Sharers (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1) (hc) , Bantam, 546 pp., 37068-5
- 1992 : Pluto in the Morning Light (The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume 1) (tpb) , Grafton (UK), 396 pp., ISBN 0-586-21369-4
- 1995 : Killing Me Softly (pb) , Harper & Row ( "The Affair")
- 1999 : Pavane au fil du temps (pb) , J'ai lu (France), 352 pp., ISBN 2277226319, 2631 (in French "Idylle" tr. Pierre K. Rey)
- 2003 : Voile vers Byzance: Nouvelles au fil du temps, tome 3, 1981-1987 (tpb) , Flammarion (France), 768 pp., ISBN 2080682547, 41 (in French "Serpent et océan, océan et serpent")
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Comments:
Chris Maitland is an ordinary securities analyst in San Francisco. At least on the outside. Inside he has a special gift -- the ability to communicate over long distances with other gifted people. He lives well enough with his secret, and his wife has no idea of his ability. And in fact it makes little difference from day to day. Most of the people around the world who share the gift are mentally unstable, and he gets little joy from conversing with them. But he often lets his mind roam in search of a kindred soul, someone with whom he can share his gift. Then one day he contacts Laurel Hammett, a potter from Phoenix, and they commence upon a strange and beautiful relationship.
Silverberg's preferred title for this story is "Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake". Alice K. Turner, fiction editor at Playboy, called it "The Affair".
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